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My personal reflections on the latest announcements.
by Oliver Tacke
Now we know them, the new plans of AMIGA, Inc. And what a stir they made! One side approves them, the other side rejects them, and everyone is putting in their two bobs worth, more or less objectively.
Disappointed long-time fans, because they did not get what they expected, now abandon the Amiga - or at least the new owners and their plans. The situation became aggravated further, because AMIGA Inc. apparently did not have the savvy to run a reasonable information policy. The news had to be collected from newsgroups and from different internet sites, and it was quite easy to miss vital facts. Though Fleecy Moss tried hard to limit the damage by rectifying the rumors and misunderstood reports on a mailing list, he did not fully succeed.
I have had to read hundreds of e-mails and sift through hundreds of postings to get a handle on the situation. I want to set out my conclusions here for the Amiga Community (and of course for anybody else who is interested).
At first, let's canvass the question of why there is going to be an OS 4.0, even though AMIGA, Inc. had stated at the latest Amiga Fair, at Cologne, that OS 3.9 would be the final version of the AmigaOS, unless at least 50,000 copies were sold.
At that time there were still efforts to convert the AmigaDE directly to an independent operating system. Thus AmigaOS 4.0 would have been another desktop operating system, which would have had to be developed in parallel, i.e. there would have had to be additional developers for two independent operating systems.
Since the AmigaDE could not be developed to an independent operating system, an AmigaOS 4.x as a host has become a vital part of the strategy of AMIGA, Inc. In the long run, AmigaOS 4.x will ramp up, by integration of the AmigaDE, to AmigaOS 5, which will be available for processors other than PowerPC, without doubt as well for the x86 family.
AmigaOS 5 will be what AMIGA, Inc. had promised: An operating system essentially independent from the hardware.
In many discussions the question that generated the heat was that AmigaOS 4 would not run on the PowerPC boards in today's Amigas. I can understand why AMIGA, Inc. made this decision, even if I do not agree with it 100 percent.
Viewed objectively, today's Amigas, with all their extensions, are just so much patchwork. Starting with the many totally different hardware components, lately extended by several PCI-Bus boards, all based upon different ideas, and ending with the operating system which is groaning under the weight of uncountable patches and extensions.
With the AmigaOne or zico specification and AmigaOS 4 a clean new base line is planned, free of hacks and patches. It is certainly much easier to develop products for this standard base line than to have to take into account all the different configurations. It's been quite a while since I have seen any complex program that would run flawlessly on every current configuration.
Furthermore, in the life of every piece of hardware there comes a time when it really isn't up-to-date any more. Our present Amigas are at least 8 years old and still do the job, quite a feat compared to the exchange rate in the PC range. But the day will come when they breathe their last.
Any brand new Amiga hardware would not be amiss, if it offered the advantages mentioned above. In money terms, I am sure that a new Amiga would still be cheaper than upgrading an older machine with USB, G3/G4 etc. to meet the zico specifications. So from this point of view it certainly is reasonable to make a break from the past.
Of course, that means dumping all the users who have kept upgrading their Amigas with the latest hi-spec gear - they will not be able to run new programs on it. That the PPC boards came from phase5 and not from AMIGA, Inc. is not the point. But I believe all is not lost for those hi-speccers.
I think it would be better that, instead of just grumbling, a few able programmers should get together and offer AMIGA, Inc. to program a zico layer for recent hi-spec Amigas, so that OS 4.x could run on them, too. As Fleecy Moss stated, AMIGA, Inc. is open to those offers at any time.
In the worst case - a flop of the AmigaDE (and with this a probable flop of the AmigaOS 4, and the AmigaOS 5 surely being done for) - an AmigaOne would be useless, because it only can be used for AmigaOS 4 or maybe LinuxPPC (or MorphOS, if it will run on it). The situation wouldn't be better than today, but you would be down some bucks. This would be it!
But all those who do not want to run this risk could buy a PC (if they do not have one yet) and run AmigaDE hosted upon Windows or Linux. According to Fleecy Moss there is the possibility to do it in a way that you are not even aware of the host. If the AmigaDE flops, you always can fall back on Windows or Linux. If the AmigaDE does not flop, there certainly will be an AmigaOS 5, which later on will natively run on the PC; then you still can change over.
An AmigaOne is a financial risk. For the hardcore Amiga fans, which up to now still do not have a PC as alternate computer (I am one of those, by the way, and it is said, that there are a few more) and who ponder the question of how long their machine will last, an AmigaOne is coming at the right moment. To all the others the alternative mentioned above is at their disposal.
Since we get to it with AmigaOS 5, why not port the AmigaOS 4 to x86 right away instead of to PowerPC? Many Amiga users emphatically prefer PowerPC to the x86 family, for whatever reasons. Besides that, many programmers are more familiar with the PPC and Haage&Partner presumably have already done preparatory work.
Several people were critical that AmigaOS 4 cannot be tried without buying an AmigaOne. This is true! On the other hand you cannot test the latest versions of Windows or MacOS beforehand (unless you pay for it and work as a beta-tester).
You probably will have to rely on test reports, view demos at shows or find someone who already has bought an AmigaOne.
I am sure that there will be demonstrations at a show. Certainly this is not completely satisfactory. I have to agree to this. I can only appeal again to able programmers to contact AMIGA, Inc., and offer to write a zico layer for existing Amigas.
AMIGA, Inc. was accused of misleading SDK programmers. Due to the announced partnerships with Sharp and Psion it appeared as if they wanted to limit programs to only the PDA and settop box market. People who, hoping for a new desktop OS, had bought the SDK, might feel deceived.
But this is not the case. With the AmigaDE it will always be possible to write applications also for desktops, because it will run hosted on Windows and Linux and native in AmigaOS 5. The borderline between PDA and desktop software is not clear cut. The AmigaDE is not specified for PDAs alone nor for the desktop. It is a content environment. In this environment everything runs, if the supporting machine fulfils the requirements. If for instance you write a 3D shooter for the AmigaDE, is this a desktop application or one for the PDA? If the PDA is sufficiently powerful, the game will run on it, too.
I knowingly will put quotation marks around the "desktop", to mark this inflexible definition: It will be possible as always, to program applications for the "desktop", too.
Should software now be developed for AmigaOS 4 or for AmigaDE? Since the AmigaDE will run on AmigaOS 4.2 (and other platforms) the outlet for it of course is bigger and more promising for the manufacturers.
The question arises, how can they manage to complete the AmigaOS 4.0 this summer? The development of the #4 series of the OS will proceed step by step - that means new features will be installed by and by. We will have to wait and to see what new features are coming to the OS 4.0 and what the differences to the OS 3.9 will be. I guess that Haage&Partner have already done some preparatory work on the PowerPC port, which means that some time is saved.
Many accusations were made that there wouldn't be a reasonable AmigaOS 4.0 if Haage&Partner were in charge of it. Ralph Schmidt with MorphOS would have been the better choice, but surely Haage&Partner had prevented this, the argument went.
You can certainly argue over the quality of software from Haage&Partner. And equally, I could not convince MorphOS to run on my machine. Software is never going to satisfy everyone, whoever writes it. And Haage&Partner will not be writing AmigaOS 4.x by themselves but only their part. AmigaOS 4.x will come from AMIGA, Inc. and will have to pass their quality checks.
On the subject of partners: AMIGA, Inc offered many parties the chance to participate in the development of the new AmigaOS. But AMIGA, Inc. put up conditions as well. Ralph Schmidt declined, because these conditions did not suit him. This can hardly be blamed on Haage&Partner. For me, everything else is fallout from the "Kernel War".
Many people are worried that AmigaOS 5 as a hardware independent operating system will be too late (certainly not before 2003). They point to a serious competitor on the way - Microsoft's .net. This is a good point. Microsoft certainly is tough competition. But the AmigaDE presumably will be released earlier, even if not as an independent OS. Probably it will be able to run on more platforms than .net (Microsoft is confining this at first to Windows offsprings), and .net is just an addition or a product strategy.
The AmigaDE therefore should have some time and other advantages. And you have to remember that even AMIGA, Inc. cannot produce a new operating system by witchcraft.
Why go the detour through AmigaOS 4.0 to AmigaOS 5.0, instead of developing the AmigaDE as an independent operating system? AMIGA, Inc. is the owner of the AmigaOS source code, but the rights to the source codes of Elate are in the hands of the Tao Group. The latter certainly is not just ready to simply provide it. They will for sure ask a hefty price - and for this AMIGA will not have the money on hand. Furthermore they already have experience with AmigaOS as desktop OS, which for Elate would have to be acquired.
How can memory protection be installed in the AmigaOS, others asked, when the "Bodyguard" project tried and failed. I think it comes down to the difference between hosted/patched (Bodyguard) and newly created (AmigaOS 4). Certainly this is no easy job, even when writing from scratch, but AMIGA, Inc. seems to have realised this, with OS 4.5 (the version with memory protection) not to appear before summer 2002.
In other respects, as I understood it, there will be no memory protection for 68k programs. Those programs will run in an emulation environment and can down each other as always. But this will not influence AmigaOS 4 and the programs running on it. These will run on and will of course be protected against each other.
The information policy of AMIGA, Inc. was woeful, as many have commented. Here I really can't argue, as I mentioned in the beginning. It is understandable that Bill McEwen wanted to present the news first at a show, but AMIGA, Inc. should have had the wit to realise that this announcement would multiply confusion and lead to rumors. That all this happened on April 1 did not help.
Why didn't they publish an official press release on the homepage of AMIGA, Inc. right after the announcement? Why was there not a roadmap available with the most important details? All these are questions that I cannot answer. We only can hope that something will happen there soon.
So let's come to some conclusions: AMIGA, Inc. appears to have understood, even if a bit too late, that the cost of creating a hardware independent operating system in such a short time simply was too high. Today it would not make much sense to deliver a new operating system without a corresponding range of software. If the AmigaDE does not flop, then with the release of the AmigaOS 5 there should be sufficient software available.
Certainly money, too, will have played its part. With AmigaOS 4 some cash should go into the tin, because no company can survive for long without a product. I'd rather wait a bit longer for AmigaOS 5, than never see it at all.
For sure, what I have written here is based to some degree upon speculation and hopes. I do not deny this. It is not to my taste to speculate with insufficient knowledge, but this theme is too important for me to leave things hanging in mid air.
Oliver Tacke <oliver@aakt.de>
